How are class action settlements paid out?

Most commonly by mailed cheque or by electronic transfer. Settlements also pay in account credits applied with the defendant, vouchers or coupons, and free products or services such as credit monitoring after a data breach. The settlement notice states which form applies.

Why do some class action settlements pay in vouchers instead of cash?

A coupon settlement lets the defendant advertise a large total while paying in discounts that encourage further purchases. Courts have become sceptical of the structure, and approval increasingly depends on the class receiving benefits with real cash value, but voucher settlements still occur.

Is credit monitoring a real settlement payment?

It has genuine value but only for someone who enrols and uses it, and it is not the cash component of a settlement. It is commonly offered after a data breach because it is inexpensive per person at scale and directly responsive to the harm.

What happens if I do not cash my settlement cheque?

Settlement cheques expire, usually within a stated window. Many administrators will reissue if contacted promptly. Funds from uncashed cheques generally go to the settlement residual, which may be redistributed to other claimants or paid to a court-approved recipient.

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Cheque, e-transfer, or a voucher you will never use: how settlements actually pay

September 2, 2026 · 5 min read

A settlement can be entirely real, correctly claimed, and still hand you something you did not want. The benefit type is stated in the notice and almost nobody reads it before filing.

The forms, and what each one is worth

Form	What it means	Catch
Cheque	Mailed to the address on your claim.	Goes stale. Cash it: an uncashed cheque is often redistributed.
E-transfer / direct deposit	Increasingly common in Canada.	Watch for phishing that imitates it. Confirm the sender against the administrator's site.
Account credit	Applied to your account with the defendant.	Worth nothing if you have left the service.
Voucher / coupon	Store credit, often with an expiry and conditions.	Requires spending money with the company that was sued.
Free product or service	Replacement goods, or credit monitoring after a breach.	Credit monitoring is real value only if you actually enrol.

Why vouchers exist, and why courts dislike them

A coupon settlement lets a defendant post a large headline number while paying in discounts that drive further sales. Courts have grown sceptical of them for exactly that reason, and approval increasingly depends on the class receiving something with real cash value.

You will still meet them. When you do, the honest way to read the number is: a $30 voucher requiring a $100 purchase is not $30.

Credit monitoring is not a payment

Nearly every data breach settlement offers it, and it has genuine value, but only to someone who enrols and uses it. It is offered because it is inexpensive per person at scale and demonstrably responsive to the harm.

Take it if you were affected. Just do not read "two years of credit monitoring" as the cash part of the settlement.

Digital payments, and the fine print on a card

The claim form increasingly asks you to pick a rail rather than just an address. In Canada that usually means Interac e-Transfer against a cheque; in US settlements the menu is longer and often includes PayPal, Venmo, Zelle, a direct deposit, or a virtual prepaid card.

Treat the card option with more care than the others. A prepaid card is spendable money, but it can carry its own terms: an expiry date, conditions on how a remaining balance is used, and in some cases inactivity handling. None of that applies to a deposit into your own account. If the form offers a bank transfer and a card for the same amount, they are not equivalent offers.

The digital options also have a plain advantage worth naming: they cannot be undeliverable because you moved, which is the way most valid claims quietly turn into no money.

A cheque has a clock on it

Settlement cheques are commonly printed with a validity window, and separately, financial institutions generally treat a cheque as stale once it is around six months old and can decline it. A settlement cheque sitting in a drawer is not money waiting for you. It is money on its way back to the fund.

If yours has gone stale, ask the administrator about reissue immediately rather than at your convenience. Many will reissue inside a window that the settlement itself defines, and once that window closes the answer stops being yes.

What happens to the money nobody claims

Very few settlements return unclaimed funds to the defendant, and the notice will say what happens instead. The usual paths are a second distribution to claimants who did file, or a cy-près direction, where remaining money goes to an organisation the court approves as connected to the class.

Two things follow from that. Your payment can be larger than the estimate if the claim rate is low, which is the same mechanism running in your favour rather than against you. And an uncashed cheque is not neutral: it becomes part of the residual, so leaving it is a decision about someone else's money as well as your own.

Read the benefit before you file, not after

Every one of these is disclosed in the notice, and the claim form is where an irreversible choice gets made. Three minutes on these questions is the highest-value part of filing:

What form does this pay in? Cash, credit, voucher or service.
If there is a choice, which am I picking, and can it be changed later? Usually not.
Is the amount fixed, or pro rata? A fixed figure is a promise; a pro rata share is an estimate that moves with the number of claimants.
Where is it going? The address or account on the form, which needs to be one you will still have when distribution finally happens.

What we do with this

We record what a settlement actually delivers rather than flattening everything into a dollar figure, and a settlement that offers a voucher is not presented as though it offered cash. Where a notice does not state the benefit, we show nothing rather than assume: a data breach settlement is not credit monitoring unless the notice says so.

Common questions

Can I choose cash instead of a voucher?

Only where the settlement offers both, which some do. The claim form is where that choice is made, and it cannot be changed afterwards.

My cheque expired. Can it be reissued?

Ask the administrator quickly. Many will reissue within a window, after which uncashed funds move to the settlement's residual distribution.

I got an e-transfer I was not expecting. Is it real?

Check the sender against the administrator named on the settlement's official site before accepting. And no legitimate settlement ever asks you to pay a fee, buy a card, or hand over a password to release a payment.

See what is open now, and what each one pays →

PayUpBro is not a law firm and never files a claim for you. This page explains publicly available information about how class action settlements work; it is not legal advice. Whether you qualify is decided by the court-appointed settlement administrator, not by us.